


crystal light

by marssram



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Break Up, M/M, Reflection, Self-Indulgent, crystal light as a plot device, literally just me venting, me and my metaphors, not a happy ending but like...an understanding, you'll be fine i promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-18 19:00:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28997118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marssram/pseuds/marssram
Summary: Is it possible to love someone so intensely that you believe there is no universe without them?He shakes his head to avoid the possibility of an answer. Because he already knows what it’ll be, he has been living it for years, after all.
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Comments: 5
Kudos: 23





	crystal light

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by [as the world caves in x cancer | matt maltese & my chemical romance](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5RTVoreSAY)
> 
> .
> 
> as the world caves in [the hardest part of this is leavin’ you]

Tooru has many habits. 

Many would be considered conventionally ‘good.’ He eats well and always makes sure to consume the required servings of fruits and vegetables. Tooru works out intensively and always keeps hydrated. He calls his mother weekly and checks in with old friends when he hasn’t heard from them in a while. In more ways than one, Tooru is perceived as a successful citizen of society with the right intentions. 

Tooru also has a habit of straightening the grocery store’s cereal boxes when they’re jumbled from an obvious mid-day rush. Once, during his morning jog by the lake, he had stumbled upon a bird with a fishing line woven around its foot. He had spent the next twenty minutes wrestling feathers and the fishing line until the bird was free to escape from his grasp. After Takeru had dropped Tooru’s favorite mug because he hadn’t been holding it correctly, Tooru insisted that there was no reason to cry.  _ All broken things can be fixed,  _ Tooru had reassured _.  _

“You can’t pick up every stray you see on the street.” Tooru can distinctly remember the gruff voice in his ear as he leaned over a small cat with dark, brown fur cowering behind a lamp post. 

Tooru had twitched a smile and replied, “Not with that attitude, Iwa-chan!” 

And he had meant it, too. Though veiled behind a grin and a wink, he believed that all lost things could be given a place to call home again. 

Often, and without much conscious thought, these habits translate to Tooru’s physical, human relationships. 

His hands shake violently as he tries to keep a solid grip on the steering wheel in front of him. This isn’t new for him, the shaking, the tears streaming down his face with no signs of halting. His breath is labored, and not for the first time in his life. He can't seem to intake enough air to keep him upright. In some twisted way, the wails that escape his lips through broken breaths feel like a warm palm on his chest. As if the act of cracking himself open just to wilt is his body’s default instinct, letting go to keep himself together. 

He attempts to turn the key that lies still in his ignition, the dash blinking bright colors that blur his vision. If he squints hard enough through the well of tears, they sparkled like stars. 

Stars. 

_ Is it possible to love someone so intensely that you believe there is no universe without them?  _ He shakes his head to avoid the possibility of an answer. Because he already knows what it’ll be, he has been living it for years, after all. 

But this time, it’s different. It’s over. Tooru knows this is for the best, but at the same time, it feels so disgustingly wrong. 

_ “I just can’t do this anymore. I mentally can’t be what you need.” Hajime had been holding himself, knuckles pressed into the sleeves of his jacket. Tooru was crying, shaking his head so violently that it may fall off his shoulders. _

Tooru turns the key. He starts driving. He’s still shaking. 

_ “That’s not true, Hajime; you are more than enough. We can fix this.” His hands swept to cup Hajime’s face, all sweaty palms and tear-stained cheeks. But he held the face of his lover, nonetheless. Tooru stared at the man who painted the stars in the sky and willed the sun to rise. _

He wipes a hand across his cheek. The tears stop falling in waves. Tooru suddenly misses their company. 

_ “I’m not a project, Tooru. I’m not something you can build back together.” _

Tooru can’t conceptualize the inability to glue a broken thing back together. It should be rational. It's not as if he could reach into Hajime’s head and rearrange the interior. But maybe, just maybe, if he loves Hajime enough, it would rearrange itself. 

_ “I love you, Tooru, but sometimes love isn’t enough.” _

Love is a strong power, an insistent drug. It can warp reality right before your eyes, place glasses atop your nose, and blinds you to the unlovable. Tooru was quite fond of his rose-colored glasses, shiny and new like much of his adorations. The way they made his chest warm with affection during the peaceful aftermath of a laborious fight. The way his head dizzied when Hajime kissed him after a week of not speaking to him at all. 

Love is a powerful drug, indeed. But even then, the stars are stars because the universe shaped them. The sun rises in order with the laws of time and space. The glasses are just that, glasses. 

Tooru parks the car in an empty lot. The moon is heavy, and the sky blankets the world black around him. He feels like he’s swimming in its drapes, suffocating under its weight. 

_ If love is a drug, can you build up a tolerance?  _

His insides are hollow with the same vacantness of an empty shelf, a barren house. As if the contents of his body have moved to seek a home elsewhere. It feels like a mistake, like a void was created before he could adequately process it. It feels like a deal made under his nose. 

Tooru realizes too late that he is wrong. That his home was never furnished. Instead, he had taken shelter in the warmth of another. This is eviction of the worst degree. He still has a bed and a house with food in the fridge. But this is emotional fraudulence. His heart aches for its rightful power source. 

_ When you love someone, you often give them a piece of your heart. Is it possible, hypothetically, to give all the pieces away?  _

It’s a chilly night, but it serves to soothe Tooru’s skin from the flames that lap against it. His bones ache with the onslaught of fire; the pain sounds like the beams of a house giving way to gravity. 

Tooru takes a seat on a park bench that isn’t quite placed in a park. He doesn’t know where he is, the streets are dim, and his curiosity is lost in the clouds. 

There’s so much he can reflect on. The heartache, the loss of the man he has loved his entire life. Maybe even how they got here, why this all happened. Perhaps, more rationality, to drive home instead of loitering in unknown places at night. 

But instead, 

When Tooru and Hajime were nine years old, they drank Crystal Light in their water bottles. Water is bland with no flavor or pretty colors to encourage its consumption. Their parents caught on quickly to the simplicity of a child’s needs. So, when Tooru and Hajime had playdates in the summer heat, they sip on bright orange and red water bottles full of Crystal Light. 

Water is, obviously, vital to the human body. Much of its internal organs and processes rely on the consumption of water to keep it alive. The Crystal Light was just a mere decoration, an enhancement to the necessity. 

In this life, Tooru was Hajime’s Crystal Light. The water is just that—his own wellbeing, health, and happiness. Tooru knows, hopes, that at one point, he made Hajime’s life better, that he tasted like sugar on his lips. 

But in this life, Hajime has always been water. A symbol of life and existence. It wasn’t really a conscious decision. Quite honestly, it was a natural transition. 

Loving Hajime was like loving himself. In many ways, his own identity is attached to the man. 

He can’t help but feel swindled, a flash of anger pulling at his stomach. 

It's exhausting work, regretting the way you love. Too young and inexperienced to really know much better. Tooru holds the cross on his shoulders, walks the miles with an ache in his back. 

What happens when he lets go? How does he relearn something that has never been taught? 

Tooru sits on this cold, concrete bench and thinks of broken things. His hands feel numb, his head swirling from the dehydration, the glasses lay cracked on the ground beneath him. 

_ Is it possible to love someone so much- _

Tooru closes his eyes and tilts his chin towards the sky. Maybe this is purgatory, a consequence of the messes he’s found himself in. It is easy to believe this is punishment for unplaced bad actions. 

He is quite familiar with blame because, 

Tooru has many habits. 

Many of them would be considered right, correct, selfless, and endearing. Maybe unrealistic and self-destructive at times, but he has lived this long without a breach in the monotony. 

Tooru stands from the bench. The air is properly frigid, and he has a house to warm in preparation for a bitter night. His feet carry him primarily, the way a body reacts in fight-or-flight, to escape a danger that is woefully trapped behind his ribs.

When Tooru returns back to his car, he turns on the ignition with steady hands. He considers a phone call, an attempt to mend the jagged break, smooth over the jaded edges. He also thinks of Hajime’s eyes, weighed with exhaustion and disparity. 

Tooru thinks of Crystal Light, vibrant in a crumpled bottle. Tooru thinks of it all the way home, his phone nestled deep inside his pocket. 

☾

Tooru always had slippery fingers. He seemed to break things often and obsess over the act of picking up the pieces.

It was just a miscellaneous glass plate. One that couldn’t cost very much. But it tumbled to the tile nonetheless, Tooru’s own shriek to accompany the clatter. 

Hajime, beautiful in a clean pullover had bounded around the corner with wide eyes and tense shoulders. Tooru had giggled then, a sheepish thing to offset the embarrassment. 

But even Hajime was familiar with the routine. He had never asked for Tooru to change, never even thought of it. Not until it was too late. 

With an amused roll of his eyes, Hajime escaped to grab a dustpan. He knelt in front of the heap of glass without a word.

“Thank you, Hajime,” Tooru had whispered, kneeling beside him to feign assistance. 

_ “You attract broken things, Tooru,” _ Hajime had joked, throwing away shattered glass.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to my lovely betas, [lizzie](https://twitter.com/karasuno9_10) and [leo](https://twitter.com/hajitoru) ! this was very spur of the moment so thank you for being so lovely and making time for me. love you bunches!
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/_marssram)


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